Diāna et Actaeōn retells the story of Actaeon’s transformation into a deer for his crime of seeing Diana nude and bathing. Diana describes the people in her family and relates how she hates men (fufae!). Instead, animals, hunting, and the woods delight her. She also reveals a secret to the reader: her favorite place is a river in the woods where she likes to bathe. Alas, her secret place is discovered with disastrous and deadly results.
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Fabula Brevis: Bacchus et Acoetes
Bacchus et Acoetes retells how Bacchus gets revenge on pirates by turning them into dolphins. This tale may not exactly be to the level of the Princess Bride as, alas, no one gets murdered by pirates. Instead, nearly all the pirates are punished for their greed, except Acoetes. Bacchus rewards Acoetes by offering him the position of priest in his temple. This story is suitable for Latin I, and we glossed the words in bold for our students. We taught this story after we taught Venus et Vulcanus. We pretaught some of the vocabulary for this story and reviewed other words through a movie talk. Our students were rather invested…
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Fabula Brēvis: Venus et Mārs
The short story Venus et Mars retells the myth of Vulcan trapping Venus and Mars in his net. This story is the sequel to Sella Magica Vulcani in which Jupiter arranges the marriage of Venus and Vulcan in exchange for Juno’s freedom. Our students predicted a rather unhappy marriage, and they are not wrong! In Venus et Mars, students learn how Venus feels about her new marriage and meet a rather saucy and angry goddess.
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Iuno et Vulcanus, Infans Turpis
Iuno et Vulcanus, Insans Turpis is based on the myth of Jupiter throwing Vulcan off Mount Olympus. In this version of the myth, Juno is Vulcan’s only parent. I wrote this story for use in our Introduction to Latin course. In the story, we’re introducing relative pronouns, particularly the forms qui and quae. We are also circling the expression Debeo/debet + the infinitive. We had many preteaching activities for the story to aid in vocabulary and reading comprehension. Because the Quid debeo agere activity was so successful for the Saturnus et Rhea story, we repeated the activity for Iuno et Vulcanus, this time with student actors. To increase student engagement,…
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Saturnus et Rhea
Saturnus et Rhea is based on the myth of Saturnus eating all of his children. I wrote this story for use in our Introduction to Latin course. In the story, we’re introducing relative pronouns, particularly the forms qui and quae. We had many preteaching activities for the story to aid in vocabulary and reading comprehension. (My favorite was Quid debeo agere?! in which I met various Olympians in different places and students had to tell me what I should do on their white boards; I may have flushed Neptune down a toilet).
